Different from You
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: We all know that Shinji and Gendo are like water and oil, light and dark, kind and cruel, right? So what would happen if Shinji had a situation that made him more different from Gendo than anticipated? What if Shinji had a responsibility that he viewed with more acceptance than Eva and the war against the Angels? Read at your own volition and review with honesty.
1. Different from You

Creation began on 10-18-14

Creation ended on 10-24-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You

A/N: We've all either read of, thought of, or even suggested of the different possibilities of how to portray Shinji Ikari with a different past to reshape his present and future, whether it was putting him with relatives that actually care, having him find something ancient or some other supernatural talisman that grants its holder power beyond their imagination, or even just having him find a different love interest that would spend time with him and help him move on with his life. But what if, like some cases of actual events that occur in real life were to happen to him? What if, despite his age, he showed some maturity that seemed almost beyond what other teens his age would display in the world of Eva? Here's something that came to mind just a while ago today. Here's to another prototype story in my multiverse of Evangelion with different scenarios and characters for bringing irregularity and hope to those that have none.

The police found him as soon as they got hold of the ransom demand that was put on his life, but they weren't able to prevent the threat that was placed on him if the ransom wasn't met within a given timetable. While he wasn't harmed in a physical sense of the word; he still had all his fingers and toes, there were no bruises on his wrists or back, and he didn't lose any blood was deprived of any food or drink, but young Shinji Ikari had been abused by at least one of his kidnappers in a way that no child should ever be harmed. He was taken to the hospital, but he couldn't talk about what had happened to him, no matter how much the police questioned him about it. They just wanted his testimony on the kidnappers and his abuser to make their already-hard case against them even harder, and he was at the age where he qualified to bring his kidnappers and abuser to justice.

"_This feels good, doesn't it?"_ He had been asked, wanting only to forget that moment locked in time.

His face had been on the news, but after six months of trying to put his three-day capture behind him, the police came back to his aunt and uncle's home to reveal something they felt the boy had to know.

-x-

_Four years later_

Sometimes, Shinji was glad to be away from his aunt and uncle. They rarely, if ever, showed any actual consideration towards him for his maturity in the four-and-a-half years following his capture and experience. But the police decreed that he had a right to know what happened, regardless of opinions or laws.

"_They're going away for a long time, but he should know what happened after that night he was assaulted,"_ one of the police had told his aunt and uncle.

"We're sorry," went an electronic, female voice to Shinji over the phone, "but the number you're trying to reach cannot be reached at this time. Please, hang up and try again later."

He sighed and hung up the payphone, and then looked to his ward.

A girl, between three-four years of age, with short, ebony hair and pale eyes, dressed in a blue skort and a green coat.

"Call didn't reach out?" She asked him.

"No, I'm afraid it didn't," he answered.

"Bad?"

"No, but not good, either. It looks like we're walking."

"But my feet hurt."

Shinji lowered and allowed her to climb onto his back, and he grabbed their two bags and started walking away from the train station they were at.

-x-

"…Of all the times I had to lose track of him, it had to be today," went a woman with purple hair, driving a blue Renault A310, going over the lack of surveillance on the subject she had a file on.

"It's not my fault you overslept this morning," went a female voice on her cell phone.

-x-

It was a quiet walk for Shinji and the girl. The town itself seemed empty, so there was no one to bother them. It allowed for the boy to be alone with his thoughts while the girl acted as his unheard companion, trying to make sense of things in the present that weren't in the past.

"_They called her Fuyona,"_ his uncle had told him, _"because that's what she'll always be: Unwanted."_

"_That's not true," _Shinji had told him in response to this revelation. _"It will never be true."_

Fuyona to those around them, but to him, she was Shado, his shadow, in one way or another. Plus, it seemed better to be his shadow than to be unwanted just because of the circumstances that was always between them and the unrest of the past.

The next thing he knew…fighter jets flew passed them over the buildings and toward a large creature that looked like it was from some other point in time that was long gone.

"What is that?!" Shado questioned, pointing to the monster.

"I'm not sure," he responded, fearful at the moment.

Suddenly, a blue car swerved in front of them in between the giant creature as it was being assaulted by the VTOL jets.

"Get in!" A woman ordered them, and they obliged.

They drove away from the town as it became a battlefield.

-x-

"…Conventional weapons are useless," went a cold man dressed in black to an older man dressed in grayish-brown.

Then, on a large series of holographic monitors, the creature that was attacking the small city was engulfed in a ball of fire that took the whole settlement with it. Or so the people wanted to believe.

-x-

"…Ow…my head," Shado groaned, having hit her head against the back of the front passenger seat that Shinji was in.

"Are you okay, Shado?" He asked her, looking back to check her head. "Looks like a bruise."

"What possessed you to bring a little kid with you?" The purple-haired woman asked.

"Don't yell at him, please," Shado told her, which caught her off guard to be spoken to like that. "He has done nothing bad. Yelling at him is bad, which makes you bad."

"It's okay, Shado," Shinji told her. "To answer the question, I couldn't leave her alone. My aunt and uncle, they'd just love for me to try."

"Your aunt and uncle? You mean, she's not your cousin?" The woman asked.

"I'm his ward," Shado expressed.

"His ward, hmm? Doesn't he seem young to be acting as your guardian?"

"It happens," Shinji expressed.

-x-

"…Fuyutsuki, handle things here," the man in black said to the elder, as control of the situation had been handed over to NERV.

As he left, the elder man expressed, "His first reunion with his son in years."

-x-

Being shown the Geo-Front and NERV HQ, Shinji and Shado were led through the base by Misato, who seemed reliant upon a map to find her way around the building. The little girl was being held by Shinji because he didn't want her walking too long.

"Captain Katsuragi," they heard a new voice in front of them as they neared an elevator.

It was a woman, dressed in a white lab coat, a black skirt and stockings, and a blue blouse. Her hair was bleached blond and she had a mole under one of her eyes.

"Hey, Ritsuko," Misato greeted her.

"Why must you try my patience?" The woman, Ritsuko, asked her. "You do realize that we're short on both time and personnel?"

"Sorry," Misato apologized. "I haven't memorized the layout of this place yet."

The faux-blond woman then looked at Shinji and Shado, wondering why a little girl was with Misato and the boy.

"Is this the boy?" She then asked.

"Um, yes," Misato answered. "According to the Marduk Institute, he's the Third Child."

"Why is a kid with him?"

"He wouldn't come without her…and he couldn't leave her alone."

Shado just held on tighter to Shinji, who responded in turn by holding onto her tighter.

"Very well, then," Ritsuko expressed. "This way, please."

They followed her down the hall.

_Why would he want to see me?_ Shinji thought, wondering why his father sent a letter that, more or less, demanded that he show up to see him. _Whatever the reason, it can't be anything short of reconciliation._

Ritsuko led them into a dark room and turned on a light, revealing a large, purple face with a horn.

"Aaaahh!" Shado gasped, turning her face away from the giant head.

"What is this?" Shinji demanded, both fearful and angry.

"This is the last card our species as a whole has to play, our last stand against the Angels," Ritsuko declared. "The synthetic construct codenamed Evangelion Unit-01, built here in secret."

"And I'm guessing that this is that man's work?"

"Correct!" Shinji looked up and saw his father behind a lot of thick glass. "It's been a while, Shinji."

Shinji frowned and responded, "You got a lot of nerve."

Shado turned to look up at Gendo, and immediately turned away; she found both the man and the giant head scary.

"Listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you, Shinji," she heard the man say. "You're going to ride in Unit-01. You're going to fight the Angel."

Shinji looked at Gendo, and then at Misato and Ritsuko, and responded, "No."

"If you don't, then we're all dead," he told him.

"But it took Rei over seven months to synchronize with the Eva," Misato expressed. "A boy that just arrived has no chance!"

"He just needs to sit in the seat," Gendo told her. "I don't expect more than that from him."

"I won't do it," Shinji repeated, wanting his response heard hard by his old man. "You can't make me."

-x-

The Angel, once it had regenerated from its injuries, had entered Tokyo-3, ever-more determined to locate the source of a colossal disturbance in the balance of life and wisdom.

-x-

"…If you don't do it, then the human race will be destroyed," Misato tried to convince Shinji, as he walked away down the hall with Shado.

"My concern isn't everyone," he told her. "My concern is Shado. I don't have the luxury of being worried about people I just met or don't know."

Shado looked at Misato and held on tighter to Shinji, which made the purple-haired woman confused at how this girl could seem so attached to the boy.

"I've never seen or heard of anything that seemed so ludicrous before in my life, and that man expects me to do something after showing up?" Shinji continued to her. "If I knew the only reason he sent for me was just to exploit me, I would've been better off on a boat with Shado heading for the States to start a new life where people don't know you or try to bother you."

"Would you at least try to pilot the Eva?" She suggested, which only made Shado lock her hands around Shinji's neck, as if worried that he might be taken from her.

"He said 'no'," she expressed to the woman. "He doesn't want to do what you ask of him. You can't make him."

"Why are you defending him?"

"You shouldn't make people do what they don't want to do for you. That man is bad. That lady is bad. People that hurt you are bad."

"And he'll hurt a lot of people if he doesn't stop the Angel."

Shinji stopped walking away, sighed, and then turned around to face Misato.

"You have no one else more qualified to do this?" He asked her.

"Our initial pilot was injured in an earlier test and our second pilot is on the other side of the world in Germany," she explained.

Then, seeming like he had no alternative, Shinji went, "I'll do it this one time. Then we're gone."

Misato accepted his decision, but Shado worried that he was making a mistake.

The girl feared for his safety, that he might not come back, that she would be left alone.

-x-

As the Angel wandered into the center of the city, it sensed something new coming towards it.

Suddenly, the ground in front of it opened up…and revealed a massive humanoid that resembled what had been taken long ago…but stunk of what it despised for an unexplainable reason.

-x-

"…Shinji, I want to try walking for now," went Ritsuko over the intercom inside the Entry Plug to Shinji. "Just think about walking."

_Walking,_ he thought, though his thinking was hardly focused solely on walking. _Baby steps._

The Eva lifted up its right leg…and brought it down in front of the left leg.

_Walking, walking,_ he continued, making the Eva take another step forward…but then the cybernetic behemoth charged toward the Angel.

_What?! Stop! Stop!_ Shinji thought, but the Eva wasn't listening, and it slammed into the Angel, sending it to the ground. "Ouch."

The Angel then kicked the Eva off and send it several feet away, landing on its back.

"Shinji, get up!" He heard Misato say to him, just as the Angel approached him and grabbed his left arm. "Get outta there!"

Grip! The Angel pulled on his arm, causing him pain.

Shinji heard someone saying that he wasn't in any real harm, but what he was feeling in his arm right now seemed real enough.

SNAP! He soon heard and felt a break in his limb, but didn't find it in to scream out in pain.

The sight of the Angel looking at him, almost piercing into his very soul, exploring his past memories was enough to frighten him.

SMASH! The Angel had punched a hole into the Eva's head, right through the right eye, sending it flying backwards into a building where it fell, bleeding out a blood-like substance from the open wound in its head.

-x-

"The head is damaged!" Shado heard someone say. "Extent of damage is unknown!"

"We're having trouble maintaining activation!" She heard someone else say.

"What about Shinji?" Misato asked.

"We can't confirm if he's alive or dead," a man explained, and it made Shado worry like there was no end to this madness she found herself in.

"That's it. Abort operation. Pilot safety is our top priority. Eject the Entry Plug!" Misato ordered.

"We can't!" A woman told her. "We've lost contact with the Eva!"

"What did you say?!"

The sight of the damaged Eva meant nothing to the girl, but the fear that her companion inside of it was hurt or worse frightened her.

"Get out of there," she uttered, her voice tone rising. "Daddy, get out of there!"

Misato, Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki and Gendo all looked at the girl, unsure of what they heard just now.

-x-

_"Daddy, get out of there!"_ Shinji had heard Shado shout out to him, and came to inside the Entry Plug.

_I can't leave her alone, surrounded by strangers, people that would just as turn her away than to help her. I'd be no different from him, and I am not him. _He thought, trying to get the Eva to move.

The cybernetic behemoth's other eye flashed back on as its jaw broke open, revealing red, metallic teeth inside.

GROWL! The Eva acted up, and then charged toward the Angel a second time, this time slamming into it with enough force that it pushed it backwards and into a building.

SMASH! The building crumbled down to its foundation, causing dust cloud to build up, and then Unit-01 grabbed a piece of debris and started slamming it down on the Angel's core.

"Iiiiiieee!" The Angel shrieked, grabbing onto the Eva, and then reshaping itself into a deformed ball and entrapping the enemy behemoth.

-x-

"It's gonna self-destruct!" Misato gasped, and the Angel consumed the Eva, along with a small portion of the city, in a ball of white light.

When it faded, some of the buildings had minor flames…and the Eva itself was walking away from the explosion, searing with small burns…until it fell to its knees and collapsed.

"Life signs confirmed," someone said, "from both the Eva and the pilot."

Misato sighed in relief, but then turned to look at Shado, whose presence raised some serious questions that required answers to.

Shado looked at her…and stepped back against a nearby wall, fearful of her now.

Ritsuko and Gendo also looked at the girl, wondering what her relationship to Shinji was really based on, as they heard her say something that seem unlikely.

"Shado, did we hear this right?" Misato asked her. "Did you just call Shinji…your daddy?"

-x-

Feeling slightly weakened, Shinji awoke to find himself facing an unfamiliar ceiling, which he found the least of his concerns now that he was conscious. As he rose up out of bed, his first thought was to find Shado and leave, feeling that they had overstayed their invite. But his feet felt weak, causing him to wobble each time he took a step toward the door to the room.

The door suddenly opened…and Misato stepped in.

"You're awake," she expressed, though Shinji gave her a frown that was clearly a sign that he didn't trust her as far as he was willing to throw her. "We have some questions that you need to answer."

"I thought I stopped the Angel last night," he uttered to her. "It wasn't easy, but I held up my end. Where's Shado? What did you do with her?"

"She's fine. She's with Ritsuko and your father."

"You left her alone with him?!" Shinji yelled at her.

"We needed to confirm something about you two," she tried to explain, though Shinji approached her and then moved her out of his way to leave out the room. "Wait! I can explain this!"

"I have to get her," he expressed. "We have to leave. Now."

"Now, hold on a moment," Misato tried to stop him, grabbing his left arm. "Shado called you something that you need to explain, because we're confused by your relationship."

"I don't owe you any explanation."

"Then why did she call you something that puzzled everyone after you got hurt? Why did she call you her daddy?"

Shinji stopped resisting and stood against the wall in the hall, looking at her.

"It's not something people can either accept or understand, because it's complicated," he told her.

"Then make it simple," she responded.

"She's my daughter."

"So, uh, what, you two play house or something?"

"No. I mean it literally. She's my daughter. My blood."

Misato tried to see it on his face, that he was just joking around and the girl that came with him was just a cousin…but nowhere on his face was a sign of humor. No, this boy's look was as serious as his tone was when he declared that he would deal with the Angel, but leave afterward.

"You're serious?" She asked him.

"As cancer and diabetes are serious and hard to beat," he answered.

-x-

"…She ran right into the ventilation shaft right after she saw the syringe," Ritsuko explained to Misato and Shinji when they arrived into the room Shado was taken to in order to draw blood to check her genetic background. "We've been unable to flush her out."

Shinji frowned at her and said, "She's a little girl, not a pest."

"And your daughter?" She asked.

"He's serious, Ritsuko," Misato told her, just as Shinji lowered onto his knees and crawled into the ventilation shaft.

"Shado," he called out to his daughter. "Shado?"

"Daddy?" He heard her daughter say in response to him, crawling out of the shadows further ahead of him. "Is that you?"

"Hey," he greeted her with a smile as she got closer and held him in her arms.

"That lady with the needle, she was going to hurt me, so I hid," she explained why she was in the vent.

"It's okay. I'm not going to let her or anyone stick you with a needle that doesn't help you. Come on, let's get out of here."

They slowly crawled out of the vent, though Shado was hesitant with both women so close and Ritsuko near with surgical tools until Shinji made her back away.

"Why can't you just swab people for their DNA?" He asked the faux-blond woman. "It's less invasive and painless."

"But blood can tell us more," she defended her use of syringes.

"Nobody's putting needles in Shado," he defended his child.

"How can you have a daughter at your age?"

"Not here…and not in front of Shado."

So they returned to the room Shinji had been placed in and left Shado in order to have some privacy to explain what had happened years ago.

"You ever heard about that kidnapping and ransom demand that was almost five years ago?" He asked the women.

"Yeah, a ten-year-old kid had been taken by three petty criminals," Misato explained.

"It was me," he revealed.

"And the girl?" Ritsuko asked.

"My daughter with one of my kidnappers and the only woman that was present before the police came and found me."

"You were raped?"

"Yeah."

"But…if your rapist went to prison, then how…"

"She had Shado in prison and died a month later," he cut her off. "I had put what happened that day behind me when the police showed up at my aunt and uncle's and explained that Shado was my daughter. They wanted nothing to do with her, but I didn't give them that option of turning her away."

"You mean, you wouldn't let them get rid of her?" Misato questioned.

"They didn't have any right to decide what was going to happen to her without my knowing. They never cared much for me, so their dislike of her was an extension of their dislike of me, just because she was mine."

"But ten-year-olds can't look after children," Ritsuko expressed, being against his decision to be a father when his own father wasn't. "You had other options."

"Yeah, and I refused to consider them," he told them. "I'm willing to admit that I have flaws, that I don't have it all together to look after her by myself, even taking an after school job in order to make my daughter happy, but I accepted this personal belief I had after my first year with her, that despite all the awful things I've been through, she is the only good thing I ever did in my life…and I wouldn't regret the choices I made to be with her."

-x-

"…This is quite the discovery," went Fuyutsuki to Gendo in the latter's office. "Your son was raped, and his rapist had his child and died in prison."

"And he's taking care of her," Gendo expressed, clearly uncomfortable with this revelation. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"Unexpected things will always happen, Ikari," Fuyutsuki told him. "And this is one of them. Your son has a daughter, and he views her as the most precious thing in his life."

But Gendo could care less about his son's child. What mattered was the benefit NERV received from the deployment of Unit-01 with a compatible pilot, and Shinji and Rei were the only ones compatible with the purple behemoth. If Shinji was unwilling because of other obligations, then he needed to find a way to remove the distractions that were present.

-x-

"What now, Daddy?" Shado asked Shinji, as her father put on his shoes.

"I'm not sure, sweetie," he responded, "but we'll find out when we leave."

When he secured the laces, he led her out of the room and down the hall, looking for the elevator. He could've found where he was to sign out first, but he wanted to get his daughter as far away from his father as possible. Also, he suspected that he was going to get weird looks and gossip rumors from the people here, which he wasn't looking forward to at all.

"Shinji Ikari," he stopped at the voice of Ritsuko Akagi, coming from around a corner in the hallway, carrying a clipboard with her.

"What do you want?" He asked her.

"Commander Ikari would like to see you," she answered.

"Well, I don't want to see him," he told her. "I have nothing to say to him, and I'm not interested in hearing anything from him."

"It's only to discuss the possibility of you staying in Tokyo-3 and joining NERV for an extended period. There are still more Angels to attack in the future and…"

"No! No way! I'm not doing it again! Never again! Forget it!"

Shado held her father's left hand and went with him past the lady, wanting to leave before trouble came.

They made it to an elevator and waited for it to arrive. But when it did, the little girl noticed the very same man that was her father's father, and cowered behind Shinji to avoid her.

Shinji looked at Gendo, who had a cold look on him, knowing that there was truly nothing to say between them. The man had disregarded his responsibilities as a parent, something that the boy, a young parent himself, refused to disregard because his child needed him, and he wouldn't become anything like the man in front of him, deciding long ago that child abandonment wasn't an option or an alternative solution when in a situation that seemed to have no way out.

"Daddy," went Shado to Shinji, "let's take the stairs. I don't want to go in the elevator with that man."

Shinji bent down and picked his daughter up and then walked away, agreeing with her to take the stairs, since the elevator seemed like a bad choice so long as Gendo was in it.

Shado then noticed Gendo stepped out of the elevator…and started walking down the hall behind them.

"Daddy," she whispered, "he's following us."

Shinji stopped and turned around, seeing Gendo was indeed behind them in the hall, and then walked faster to get away.

"Is he still behind us?" He asked her.

"Yes," she shuddered, holding onto him tightly.

When Shinji found a staircase, he went around a corner and placed his daughter on the ground behind him; if his father was indeed following them, he wasn't going to give the man the satisfaction of frightening them.

"Try and keep quiet," he instructed her, and then pressed against the wall.

A shadow appeared…and Shado saw Gendo entering the staircase!

Shinji frowned that he was following them, and then lifted his left leg and landed a blow right into Gendo's crotch area.

"Aaurgh!" Gendo groaned, not expecting such an assault, and fell to his palms and knees.

SWAT! Shinji then dropped his right arm on the back of Gendo's head, sending him to the floor.

"Don't follow us," he told him, and then picked up Shado and ran up the stairs.

-x-

"…Do you really think that Commander Ikari intended to harm the girl?" Ritsuko asked Misato, discovering that Gendo had been assaulted by his son and left the Geo-Front.

"It could've been a misunderstanding," Misato responded, "but judging from Shinji's fear of Shado being left alone with him, I'd say he had every right to believe his father was a threat to his daughter if he followed them. I mean, why follow them to the stairs when the elevator is much quicker?"

"He did want to talk to him about joining NERV, but turned the suggestion down. Is there any sign of them in the city?"

"No. Shinji must be a speed freak or something, because they're not in the city. They must be a mile or so outside it."

"Where could they possibly go? How far could they possibly get?"

"Shinji did say that if he knew the reason to why his father wanted to see him, he would've taken Shado to the States and stayed there. He could try getting them there right now."

-x-

Less than two miles outside Tokyo-3, Shinji carried Shado on his back as he continued to walk toward the next town. He had actually assaulted his father and got away with it, told him not to follow them and survived the encounter, protected his child and managed to leave the city.

"Daddy?" He heard Shado speak to him.

"Yes?" He responded.

"Will there be any kids my age if we make it to the States one day?"

"I'm sure they'll be dozens of kids your age, Shado."

"And snow? And fish? And opportunities?"

"All of that and more."

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"I love you very much."

"I love you, too, Shado."

-x-

Within the core of Unit-01, the resident soul had replayed the memories of the last person within the Entry Plug, discovering all that had happened to the child since its displacement from existence. How the boy had been kidnapped in the hopes of obtaining a generous ransom in return for the safety of said child. Disgusted with the discovery that the boy had been raped by a woman old enough to be his mother…and later having his daughter before dying in prison. Both proud and saddened by the boy taking responsibility as a father to a child young enough to be his baby sister or cousin when his aunt and uncle wanted nothing to do with her, just because of who he was.

Fuyona to those around the girl, as it was written on her birth certificate, but to her father, she would be Shado, his shadow in a world with limited light.

_Shinji,_ thought the soul of his displaced mother, Yui Ikari, _I am sorry._

While she had some hope that she would see him and her granddaughter again, she also had the hope that they were as far away as possible, away from the hurt, the pain and everything. Tokyo-3…and much of Japan, for that matter, didn't seem like the proper place to raise a child that not many people wanted because she was born to a former preteen without parents and a female pedophile that had tried and failed to obtained fast cash. But the memories of her granddaughter from her son's perception would suffice for her; Shado reminded Yui of Shinji when he was little, so innocent and unaware of what was going on in the world in the present.

"_I love you, Daddy,"_ Shado had once told her son, just as she was going to sleep one night.

"_I love you, too, Shado,"_ Shinji told her, going to sleep beside her; he kept her close whenever possible to avoid her being lost to him.

Yui felt like she had shamed them in a way. If she had known that Shinji would be kidnapped and then raped, she would've stayed with him instead of participating in the experiment to bond with the incomplete Evangelion at that time. If she knew Gendo would abandon their son the instant she was gone, she would've taken preventive measures to ensure that Shinji was taken care of properly. If she'd known that…that things were going to happen the way that they did, she would've never did what she did all those years ago.

She had wanted to bring about a bright future for all of mankind, but instead, she found Shinji trying to give Shado a future where they could be happy and free. It made her want to cry for them.

A/N: What do you think of this? As far as it's to my knowledge, no story like this has ever been conceived before. Please, review it and let me know what you think of it. Should it be continued? I'll leave it as an in-progress story for the foreseeable future, but I may have future ideas for this story.


	2. One Year Later

Creation began on 10-25-14

Creation ended on 10-29-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: One Year Later

A/N: I'm starting to suspect that it's stories based off ideas like this that get more reviews than the ones that are long and in-progress. People that review want more, so I try to give 'em what they want.

It had been almost a year since the Third Angel attacked Tokyo-3, Japan. Almost one whole year since it was defeated and the people were granted a reprieve from the fear of human extinction. But almost one year since the Third Child and his daughter disappeared from Japanese society, leaving no trace with which to track them down.

NERV, provided with more funding after the First Child, Rei Ayanami, recovered from the failed Unit-00 activation test and the arrival of the Second Child, Asuka Langley Soryu, and Unit-02, made several attempts to locate the boy and his child at the demand of Commander Ikari, but to no avail. Even with the aid of NERV facilities around the globe, nobody had seen or heard of anyone going by the name of Shinji Ikari or seen a young teen with a little girl. It was like a story about trying to hide, only the two protagonists hadn't been trying to hide, they only wanted to get away from the people that cared very little about their well-being.

"I'm starting to think we won't find them," went Misato to Ritsuko.

"Until the Marduk Institute locates an adequate candidate for the position of the Fourth Child, NERV has no choice to continue searching for the Third Child," Ritsuko responded, typing away commands for the MAGI.

"Not to be blunt, but you and Commander Ikari did frighten Shado," Misato expressed.

"I thought her name was Fuyona," the faux-blond responded.

"Only because it says so on her birth certificate, but the boy wouldn't call her that. To him, she would always be like his shadow than to be unwanted."

"And the aunt and uncle haven't seen or heard from them since before they showed up here last year. And they have no idea of where they were likely to go."

As they continued to converse, Gendo Ikari, in his office, droning over the lack of progress that had been made in finding his son and bastard granddaughter. It was completely unlikely that people would lose sight of a fourteen-year-old boy and a three-four-year-old girl. Unless, of course, they had managed to be picked up by those that viewed NERV as antagonistic or anti-religious toward the Angels, or they just dropped off the grid, which would make them nearly impossible to find.

_Dammit!_ He thought, picking up a photograph of Shinji from over a year ago before he arrived to Tokyo-3. _Where are you?! Where are you?!_

-x-

"…I had strings, but now I'm free," a television had broadcast a trailer in front of a small room's sole occupants. "There are no strings on me."

"Daddy?" A little girl with ebony hair that went past her shoulders spoke to a boy that was about fifteen years old. "Could we see that movie one day?"

"Sure," the boy answered her, pouring a small cup full of juice.

Almost a year since they left Japan, but Shinji and Shado had never been happier to be away from the people that either despised them or tried to exploit them. Almost a year since they had fled from Japan and found a new life in the States. It wasn't exactly what Shinji had wanted for his daughter, but he was working on ensuring that Shado would have a brighter future. And he was surprised to find a job that paid quite a considerable sum for people to test new, experimental medicines for hospitals to try on the ill and elderly.

When you had just arrived into a new country and you have no money in your pockets or a green card, not to mention a child to provide for, fear and desperation tend to push you toward the road that allows you to score fast cash at the risk of your health. It seemed simple and sensible enough to him: Show up to the address on the advertisement paper, fill out the form, select the experimental medicines you're willing to test out, and then receive your pay shortly afterwards. It was made easier when he found that through orientations, the majority of the people that had showed up before he had decided to back out after hearing of the potential side-effects of each drug if administered.

"_Sir, did you hear everything spoken?"_ The woman explaining the possible side-effects asked him when she found that he was the only one left in the room the orientation was being held.

"_Yes, ma'am,"_ he answered her.

"_And you're perfectly willing to participate?"_

"_This programs pays, and I need the money to better my future."_

And it was quite an arrangement he found between himself and the pharmacy that was trying to sell their new concoctions to the hospitals around the States. Every three-four weeks, he would be injected with the experimental drug to see if it affected him in any way, received his pay of between four-five-thousand dollars every three months, and for each medicine that was tested successfully, he received double the amount he was paid to try it out. It was by nothing short of a miracle that he had managed to test out at least ten different medical drugs with little, detrimental effect to his health and make a living to support himself and Shado. While his daughter did worry over him from time to time, he assured her that as long as she was okay, it was a risk he was willing to take.

_I hope the next drug I test for them is a new type of painkiller,_ he thought, looking at his left arm as his hand shook. _I still have that lousy phantom pain from that brief stint in the Eva._

When it stopped shaking, he felt relieved, but it would only be a matter of time before the phantom pain returned.

"Daddy?" Shado spoke, noticing his look of relief after his hand stopped shaking. "Hand hurting again? Do you need your pain pills?"

"No, dear," he told her. "I'm fine now."

Shado got up from her side of the small table they used for meals and want over to him, hugging him. She hated seeing him hurt because of that man-made monster and the enemy monster that threatened to destroy all of mankind. It just reminded her of that scary man that was her grandfather when they were being followed by him when they attempted to leave that underground place.

-x-

"…It looks like we might've gotten a hit on the Third Child's whereabouts," went Ryoji Kaji to Misato and Ritsuko, holding a folder full of pictures.

"Oh, really?" Misato questioned him.

"One of my contacts in the States called me and says he saw a boy that looked like the missing Eva pilot, leaving one of those major pharmaceutical companies. Apparently, there's a program of theirs that pays a substantial amount for people to volunteer for testing of new medicines. It looks like young Ikari himself has found quite the job for himself."

"He volunteers for a pharmacy to make ends meat? Kid must be pretty desperate to try and make a living like that."

When Kaji removed a photograph from the folder, he showed the two what he suspected of the boy.

"It looks more like he's trying to take care of this kid he was seen with more than himself," he revealed, showing the boy with a little girl, walking away from a hospital. "But why does he have a little girl with him in the first place?"

Misato and Ritsuko recognized the girl as Shado, but the faux-blond found the child to be a waste of anyone's time.

"Where was this taken?" Misato asked.

"Manhattan," Kaji answered.

"The Third Child's in New York?" Ritsuko questioned.

"The land of the free."

-x-

"Daddy! Daddy!" Shado ran toward her father in the park, crying.

Shinji, who was reading up on how to manage his finances, saw her running to him, and reacted in concern to a bruise on his daughter's head.

"What happened?" He asked her, examining the bruise.

"The man!" She sobbed.

"What man?"

"The bad man! From last year!"

Shinji looked around…and noticed a retreating man in black.

"Come on," he gathered her up in his arms. "We're going home now."

-x-

Only a week after receiving the information that the Third Child was living New York with his daughter, and Gendo was unable to "convince" the little girl to "convince" the boy to return to Japan.

_She's a disappointment, too,_ he thought, looking at his right hand and seeing several strands of hair around the fingers.

-x-

"Your head still hurts, Shado?" Shinji asked her in the silence of the night.

"A little," she answered, her left hand covering the bandage that hid the injury beside her bruise; her father discovered that his father (if it was truly him that attacked her) had pulled several strands of her hair out by their roots, requiring disinfect to sterilize the injury. "I don't understand. What did I do? Why did he try to take me?"

"Whatever his reason, he'd better have moral one."

-x-

"…The DNA results came back positive," Ritsuko told Gendo, using the girl's hair he had provided with his own DNA in a genetics lab just outside of New York. "The girl is the Third Child's daughter. This means that the Third Child is in New York."

"Send out the team," he responded to this revelation.

To be continued…

A/N: Here's the second chapter. What do you think of the differences between Shinji and Gendo now? Patience for the next chapter. Also, praise to Kitedtk for clarifying the difference between male and female DNA. Thank you.


	3. To Protect or Enslave

Creation began on 10-30-14

Creation ended on 11-02-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: To Protect or Enslave

A/N: What is it about _Different from You _that draws readers to it more than my other works of _Evangelion_? Is it the fact that I made Shinji a rape victim? That I made him a teen parent? That he considers his child the only good thing he ever did in his life? People should try giving my other works a chance because they're just as good.

A black Sedan pulled up in front of a building and released about four men in black suits and glasses, looking like government agents out of a comic book or the Secret Service. The building itself looked like one of those apartment buildings that dotted most cities in Japan, but was not as advanced as the ones seen in Tokyo-3.

As the men in black stepped inside the building, a man sitting at a counter noticed them and uttered, "Hey, hey! You can't just barge in here! This is a private residence!"

One of them approached the counter and presented a picture of Shinji Ikari to him.

"We're looking for this young man," he explained. "We received an anonymous tip that he resides here with a little girl. Is this true?"

"Sir, I couldn't tell you, even if I wanted to," the man responded. "This is a private residence for people that value their privacy, security and safety."

"We can place you under arrest for interfering in an official investigation," another of the four men in black informed him. "Is the young man here?"

"I'm not interfering in any investigation, but like I said, I couldn't tell you, even if I wanted to. This building is full of people that don't want trouble from anyone."

-x-

Across the street from the building, a young man watched as the lights inside the windows flickered on. He suspected that the residents of the apartment building were being disturbed by the four men that got out of the Sedan and stepped inside.

"Are they the reason you didn't stay in your building?" He asked, closing the curtains and turning to face Shinji Ikari, who sat by his table, counting several dollar bills he had.

"It's been a year since I left Japan, and after my daughter was attacked by my father just yesterday," Shinji explained to him, counting eighty grand in his hand right now. "He hurt my daughter, tried to kidnap her, and I can only suspect why he was at the park at all."

"This something to do with the reason he called you to that Tokyo-3 place last year?"

"Maybe. I just don't want my daughter getting hurt because of something I did last year just to get us away from all that hatred."

"Daddy?" They heard a little girl's voice, and Shinji saw Shado coming out of a room, dressed in footed pajamas based off the zebra.

"Couldn't sleep?" Shinji asked her as she went over to him.

"Bad dream," she explained. "The monster was in it again, along with that bad man."

He picked her and sat her on his lap.

-x-

"…The Third Child wasn't anywhere in the building he was reported to be living in," one of the men in black phoned to his superior. "He must be on the move."

"Find him," the voice of Gendo Ikari responded on the other end of the phone.

-x-

"How do you propose getting the Third Child to rejoin NERV?" Ritsuko asked Gendo.

"He won't have a choice," he answered her.

-x-

"…I don't understand why NERV seems so obsessed with this boy," went the redhead, Asuka, looking at the picture of Shinji. "He's not much to look at, and he only piloted the Eva, what, once? What's so special about him?"

"If Commander Ikari says he's needed for NERV, then he is needed for NERV," responded Rei to her, sealing her plugsuit for another round of testing Unit-00.

"How does one boy attract so much of NERV's attention? I mean, we've beaten five Angels without him being around."

Rei couldn't forget those battles. After the Third Child had left, several weeks went by until the Fourth Angel arrived to destroy mankind. It took both Units-01 and 02 to defeat it. Then the Fifth Angel, with all the power from Japan's power grid after Unit-02 was nearly reduced to molten pulp.

She didn't know what occurred during the Sixth Angel incident, but only that the Second Child took care of it. They then worked together again to defeat the Seventh Angel, which had been split in half by Unit-02, and had nearly lost Tokyo-3 trying to protect it from the Eighth Angel, which was a massive bomb of an enemy.

The Third Child only defeated one Angel, and left after that incident and wasn't seen since that day until NERV got word of his whereabouts in New York.

One thing Rei overheard shortly after that incident was debatable, but the possible rumor that the Third Child had been a female criminal's "baby daddy" years ago, unknowingly fathering a child he didn't know about until after its mother died in prison.

Asuka, on the other hand, didn't seem to know about the boy's history.

-x-

"…Will I have to wear my hair in a braid all the time?" Shado asked Shinji, who was tending to his daughter's hair the next day.

"No," he answered her, putting the finishing touches on her braid. "It's just while we're outside for today. If we see anyone that pays too much attention to us, they shouldn't be able to recognize you."

"Why can't you just change my hair color?"

"No, there's nothing wrong with your hair color the way it is, Shado. Okay, all done."

Shado looked at her brain in the mirror and placed the end of it over her right shoulder and put on her green sailor cap.

"How do I look?" She asked him, dressed in a purple shorts and a blue, short-sleeved shirt with a black tank top underneath it.

"Heh-heh. Adorable." He called her, and then hugged her.

"You're the best, Daddy."

Hearing that made Shinji's heart swell with a small degree of pride that he had at being a parent to such a girl like his daughter. It just made him forget more about his rape that resulted in her conception. Something that was that bad resulted in something that was quite good. It still surprised him that he was actually the girl's father, able to ignore who her mother was.

-x-

"…We're monitoring phone calls, credit cards, video surveillance," Ritsuko told Gendo, the MAGI now linked to every camera and phone system being used in New York. "If he tries anything, we'll know."

"It's unlikely he'll try anything," Kaji told her. "He was able to get out of Japan without making a peep, and this pharmaceutical company paid him almost two-million for his participation as a guinea pig for their new medicines. He doesn't have a checking account, so it's safe to assume that he keeps the money in safe deposit boxes somewhere."

"What's wrong with just trying to talk to him peacefully?" Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki questioned.

"After being made aware that his father was looking for him, he disappeared," Misato revealed; there was no doubt that the boy was fearful for his daughter's safety if Gendo put his hands on her.

-x-

This time, Shinji took Shado to a different park, sitting on a bench that was at least a bit closer to where he could keep a closer eye on her as she played with the other children around her age on the playground equipment. Her minor makeover seemed to keep her from harm's way as he tried to read the newspaper that he had with him, working on improving his English. But he couldn't help but look around the park at others that were there; he had to be vigilant of his daughter's safety, keeping everyone he didn't know or trust at a distance.

So far, nobody seemed to be looking his daughter's way, which was a good thing, but he still couldn't relax a little. He couldn't even sleep for five hours last night because of a nightmare he had with his father trying to force his daughter into the Evangelion to fight a monster similar to the one he had beaten before departing the Japanese city and the very country itself.

"_Daddy, stop him!" _Shado screamed, being forced into the Entry Plug.

He shook the nightmare out of his conscious, fearing that it was no different from premonition, a warning of greater woes to come.

As Shado was about to go down a slide, the girl stopped and looked at her father, who seemed incapable of relaxing after what happened the last time they were at the park. She sighed and worried that he would get hurt by his own hands if he didn't take it easy. And then she looked around the playground for anybody that might've been looking at her and saw no one doing such, but she didn't feel safe, anymore. She went down the slide and went towards the swing set, sitting in one of the four swings available.

"New around here?" A boy to her left asked her.

"Um, yes," she answered him.

He was around her age, dressed in a red shirt and green shorts, with glossy, blond hair and hazel-colored eyes.

"Nathaniel," he introduced himself to her.

"Shado," she responded, "without the 'W'."

"Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too."

"How long have you been in the city?"

"Not that long. You?"

"Two years, at least."

"Before then?"

"Germany, and my parents were glad to get away from there."

"Why?"

"All my father would say that it was a difficult family matter that had no better solution."

"I think I understand that. Difficult family matters, I mean. Daddy and I had to get away from a place that was hard to live in, too, because there were people that just didn't like us."

"I have a grandmother and a cousin that were just too difficult to be around. The last time I saw my cousin, she was just…proud all the time."

"And that was bad?"

"My father introduced me to a basic understanding of pride, and it's that if a person feels that they are more important, more better than those around them when they are not, then they are full of themselves for believing such."

Shado nodded at this, trying to comprehend all of what she learned.

"My grandfather hates Daddy… A lot of people hate Daddy…and he's never done anything wrong," she revealed bits of her sad history to the boy, just enough to explain some of what had been past tense…and without revealing everything.

"That's awful, hating someone for no reason at all," Nathaniel expressed.

Shado then looked at where her father was sitting, and smiled at him.

Shinji just smiled back.

-x-

Kozo Fuyutsuki couldn't get the little girl that was Shinji's daughter out of his mind. As he stood in front of Unit-01, the girl's voice, her cry for her father to get away from the Third Angel, echoed in his conscious.

"_Daddy, get away!"_ Her voice had uttered in fear.

Shinji had to have been less than ten years old when he had been raped by his female kidnapper, and managed to father a little girl that seemed completely innocent of all the horrors that befell the boy. It was one of the few things that made the elder wonder how and why something like this could happen to a boy that hadn't done anything wrong to anyone. And yet, when it came to leaving Japan and trying to find a life elsewhere in the USA, Fuyutsuki saw Shinji as a young man that had been thrust into fatherhood right after his childhood had become strained, and accepted this responsibility without hesitation, choosing to be the type of person that Gendo could've been, but chose not to be.

_If it was between protecting and enslaving,_ he thought, walking away from the purple behemoth now, _Shinji chooses to protect, but Gendo chooses to try and enslave. But Shinji wants only to protect his child. Gendo wants only to enslave both parent and child._

-x-

After the park, Shinji decided to treat Shado to a short time at the beach. It was mainly because the beach they were heading to was not as crowded as the other beaches around New York, and mostly because he wanted her to run along the shore as the waves came and went.

"Is this the beach, Daddy?" She asked him, pointing to a nearby beach that had some buildings that were partially-buried within the sand.

"Yeah," he answered. "That's New Drop Beach."

The sun was still pretty high, so there was enough light to ensure that the little girl had ample safety with which to play around in. Also, because they were the only two present on the beach, there was no risk of danger to either parent or child.

-x-

"…We've been keeping our distance with these two, but they might be the Third Child and his daughter," went a man over the phone to Gendo, as the NERV leader viewed a monitor that showed a little girl and a young man at a beach.

"He thinks he's so clever," said Ritsuko, noticing the little girl's hair had been tied into a braid as she ran back and forth against the tides.

"He probably just wants to have fun with his daughter," Fuyutsuki expressed, seeing the little girl now grabbing a handful of wet sand with a smile on her face.

But Gendo wasn't the least interested in this scene being monitored, recorded and sent back to base. If these two individuals on New Drop Beach were Shinji and his daughter, then NERV had to act up quickly before they lost track of them again. A whole year since the Third Angel attack was enough time for the Third Child to adjust to some measure of freedom. He needed the boy to pilot the Eva again and face the Angels.

"Ikari," Fuyutsuki uttered, "maybe we shouldn't do this."

But Gendo ignored the elder's suggestion. As Unit-00 had been repaired and upgraded after the arrival and defeat of the Fifth Angel, NERV had three Evangelions…and were short a pilot. While he could've chosen any of the candidates that went to the school to receive an education that were no different from cannon fodder, Gendo preferred to use his estranged son. And if he couldn't use the boy, then maybe his daughter would prove to be an adequate replacement.

-x-

Shado, exhausted from playing, ran toward her father and fell to palms and knees in front of him. She had so much fun that she lost track of the time that he was keeping track of.

"Is it time to go home yet?" She asked him.

Shinji checked his watch on his right wrist and found it was close to eight-thirty.

"Yeah," he told her. "Let's go home."

He picked her up and walked back up the path they took to find the bus stop that would have a bus waiting to take them home.

Snap! Shinji stopped, hearing a twig or something snap in half nearby, but he didn't see anyone because there wasn't enough light in the sky, anymore…and he didn't see any streetlights that were working.

"Daddy?" Shado asked, worried.

"It's probably nothing, sweetie," he told her, but he felt like he was lying to himself because he wasn't sure if they were being followed.

The young father resumed walking down the path.

Flash! A light was shone on his face by someone from a distance.

"Urgh!" Shinji reacted, turning his head away from the light.

"Shinji Ikari?" A man asked him.

"Who?" He responded.

"Shinji Ikari," the man repeated, revealed to be wearing a black suit.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The light was then shone on Shado's face, frightening the girl as she held onto her father's shoulders tighter in fear.

"Hey, we just left the beach and we're going home now." Shinji told the man.

Suddenly, the man in black was accompanied by at least four others.

"We're from the paramilitary agency NERV," the initial man in black announced, "and we'd like it if you came with us."

"And if I were to decline?" He asked them.

"We have authorization to use force, if necessary, to make you cooperate," the man explained.

"On whose authority?"

"Commander Gendo Ikari."

"Don't know him."

But Shinji felt threatened by the five men, and put Shado down.

"The only way we'll be going anywhere with you," he told them, taking out a small, curved karambit knife with a longer blade, "is by force."

They didn't count on the boy being armed with a weapon; they had been told that he was likely to be defenseless and spineless. But the sight of the knife and the boy's defensive glare made them think differently now.

Shado ran over to a nearby tree and held onto the trunk, keeping watch on her father; they had been over this in the unlikely situation that someone wanted them to go somewhere with them against their will, and she was to keep a safe distance every time he pulled out his knife, which he felt was the lesser of the two defensive evils, with the other being a gun.

"I guess before we get started," Shinji told them, "does anyone want to get out?"

-x-

"…Understood," Fuyutsuki sighed, receiving an update from the agent from Section Two in New York, and hung up. "Section Two have the Third Child and his daughter in their custody and are bringing them to NERV.

"Excellent," Gendo expressed.

"Your son was armed with a knife," Fuyutsuki informed him. "He murdered three of the five agents that had them cornered…and the fourth agent tried to grab his daughter, ended up with stab wound to his groin."

Gendo didn't express any concern in the deaths or injuries to the agents; so long as the Third Child and his daughter, nothing else mattered.

But Fuyutsuki wasn't convinced that this was right at all. He knew that Ikari knew that his son wanted nothing to do with NERV or the Evas, but he went ahead and had the pair captured like they were animals in a game hunt.

-x-

Shado defended her father's actions, regardless of what they were. As far as she was able to be convinced by anyone, Shinji had every right in his choice to defend himself and her from the men in black that came to them.

So the last two men left alive handcuffed her after they sedated Shinji, who tried to kill the fourth agent that tried to grab his daughter. The sight of her father unconscious and restrained made her worry that they were both in serious trouble if they ever met the bad man again.

"Something to drink, young lady?" One of the men in black suits asked her on the plane, offering a cup of water.

But Shado stayed quiet and ignored him.

To be continued…

A/N: This will be the last chapter worked on until I get to finish the next chapter of _A New Cause_. You see how far Gendo is willing to go to ensure that Shinji and Shado are in NERV custody, and how far Shinji is willing to go to protect his daughter and himself, even using a knife and willing to murder if threatened by others. Who do you think is truly good and who is extremely cruel?


	4. Fear and Hatred

Creation began on 11-13-14

Creation ended on 12-08-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: Fear and Hatred

A/N: Here's the fourth chapter.

Fluttering his eyes, Shinji awoke to the sight of another unfamiliar ceiling, but one that he recognized as those associated to NERV; it was hard to forget a ceiling he saw after his battle with the Third Angel, and the smells of staleness and sterility were sickening smells to his consciousness. As he struggled to get up, he heard a clicking sound around his arms. That was when he realized that he had been chained to the bed he was on.

"This…is so wrong right now," he told himself.

-x-

"…Why didn't we fix these vents before they were brought back?" Ritsuko questioned, feeling like she had gone back through time to that day she tried to draw blood from Shado, who ran into the air vent in the side of the wall, terrified of the woman…and more terrified of the man that had harmed her back in New York. "If you resist, this is going to waste both our time, young lady."

Crawling away through the vent, Shado could only think of getting as far away as possible from these people, find her father and go home.

-x-

"The Third Child has come to, Major Katsuragi," Makoto Hyuga informed Misato, who was the most concerned with what lines NERV had crossed in order to get Shinji and his daughter back in Japan. "Major Katsuragi?"

"Huh?" Misato gasped. "Oh, right. Sorry. Has anyone been to see him?"

"No. Commander Ikari gave instructions that he be denied visitors."

"And what of the girl?"

"She was sent to Dr. Akagi for an evaluation. Commander Ikari is also there."

"_You left her alone with him?!"_ Misato recalled Shinji's fearful response to being told Shado was in the company of his father.

"I'd better make sure that nothing's wrong," she told Hyuga, and the bridge to check up on the little girl that had demonstrated great fear of Ritsuko and Commander Ikari…and defending her father's right to say 'no' to something he was either being asked or demanded to do.

-x-

Even though he tried to pull his hands through the cuffs, Shinji couldn't break free from the bed frames. Either the handcuffs were stronger than he had gotten over the past year in New York, or the medication he'd been paid to try out for that pharmaceutical company had turned his major muscle groups into sludge. Or maybe he was still under the effects of whatever drugs those men in black had used on him to capture him. Either way, he had to find a way to get free and find Shado; he didn't trust any of these NERV people as far as he could throw them, if he could throw any of them.

Suddenly, the door to the room opened, and he saw an elderly man in a brownish-gray uniform, probably approaching his sixties, and he stepped inside.

"Hello, Mr. Shinji," he greeted the boy.

"If you're here to try and convince me to work for that has-been that put his hands on my little girl, then you're sadly mistaken that I'm the type of person that will bend over for you." Shinji told him, making no effort to hide his anger.

"That's not why I'm here," the elder revealed. "I'm actually not supposed to be here at all, as your father instructed the NERV personnel that you receive no visitors. Here."

He tossed Shinji something onto the bed, a key to the cuffs, and immediately left the room.

Shinji reached for the key and unlocked his left arm's cuff, freeing himself. He then freed his right arm and decided to take the cuffs with him, figuring that they would be useful later.

"I am not getting my freedom taken from me a third time," he told himself, stepping out of the room and into the hall. "Now, where did they take my daughter?"

-x-

"…Flood the vents with sleeping gas," ordered Gendo to the security staff.

"Uh, sir," one of the men responded, unsure of how to understand what they had been ordered to do, "she's just a little girl."

"Now," Gendo demanded, uncaring that Shado was young, just that she was apprehended.

They opened one of the vents in the hallway and placed a pipe into it, beginning to flood them with with gas.

Further away from the vent being filled with gas, Shado, frightened, crawled further away from the gas and found an emergency ladder. She climbed it up a long shaft.

"Attention! Attention! The Third Child has escaped from the medical ward! Apprehend on sight! Repeat! Apprehend on sight!" A woman's voice shouted over the P.A. system.

Shado stopped climbing and tried to recall where she heard that designation before, why 'Third Child' seemed familiar. And then it hit her: Her father was called by that designation the last time they were here, and she remembered the fear she had of losing him.

"Daddy," she sighed, realizing that he might be looking for her now.

-x-

SLAM! The guy that tried to apprehend Shinji was sent sliding against the wall, his face bruised by the repeated blows he received from the boy using the handcuffs as weapons.

"Shinji Ikari, cease and desist!" A woman ordered him, but Shinji held the chain of one of the cuffs in front of him defensively.

"I was once told never to hit a woman," he told her, "but then one of you robbed me of some piece of mind. Any woman that looks upon a younger man is dangerous. If you value your safety, you will stay away from me."

The woman then approached him…and he retaliated.

He swung the cuffs and hit her in the face.

"Aaurgh!" She yelled, but then felt her left arm grabbed on by someone.

Shinji threw her against the wall and slammed her face hard onto the other wall, knocking her to the floor, out cold. If anything, Shinji demonstrated a different disgust toward women than he did toward the men that came after him.

"Shinji Ikari!" He turned and saw more men coming towards him. "Surrender immediately!"

He looked down at the fallen woman…and saw the handle of a small pistol on the left side of her waist…and quickly picked it up.

"Don't tempt me to blow your brains out!" He threatened them.

"He's armed!" One of the men gasped.

BANG! Shinji fired into the air, breaking one of the lights above his head, sending shattered glass to the floor.

"Where's my daughter?!" He demanded.

-x-

"How'd he get out of his room?" Gendo demanded the security staff that was supposed to be keeping an eye on Shinji, who were nursing bruises on their heads.

"We don't know," one of them responded. "He just got out of his room and beat up the detail tasked with watching him. I've never seen a kid his age able to beat down people over twice his age."

"He's going to be looking for his daughter," another of the injured men expressed. "Hell hath no fury like a father who's pissed off."

Gendo looked at him with some measure of scorn; he himself was a father…and he was pissed, yet the man addressed the Third Child as a father that was just as pissed. Yet Shinji had more reason to be scornful than his own father. This only confirmed his belief that the girl had to be dealt with.

-x-

FLASH! A light shone on Shado's face as she had reached the top of the tunnel she went into.

Gasp! She panicked, seeing a man in black with a mask that covered his face with a helmet and goggles, who tried to approach her.

"Come here!" He shouted at her, and she climbed back down as quickly as she could. "No! Stop!"

But he was unable to grab her.

And then, unexpectedly, she lost her footing on the ladder and fell.

"Aaaaahh!" She yelled.

-x-

GASP! Shinji felt a jolt of hurt in his heart. His fear for his daughter's safety had increased, just as he threw another woman away from him after shooting a man in his left leg.

He ran. He ran past the people that fell before him, wanting only to find Shado and leave this godforsaken place.

-x-

She considered herself lucky right now. The sight of the bottom of the ground in front of her, mere inches from her face, was all that was left between her and the unknown. Somehow, her left leg got caught in the ladder and stopped her fall, leaving her hanging upside-down.

"Daddy…" She whined quietly to herself.

She grabbed the bars of the ladder and got up.

"The girl has gotten up!" A voice called out, and Shado looked up the ladder and saw the man in black climbing down. "Stay where you are! There's nowhere to run!"

But Shado saw that there was somewhere to run. Another tunnel that she could move through was behind the ladder, and she crawled into it.

"No!"

-x-

"…Why are we going through all this trouble over a boy that clearly wants nothing to do with NERV?" Asuka questioned Kaji, as they were heading to the Eva cages.

"You mean, no one has informed you?" Kaji asked back.

"Informed me of what?"

"Oh, dear… The little girl that was brought here with Shinji Ikari is actually his daughter."

Asuka found this discovery to be quite a shocker. It wasn't a complete mystery to her that most countries had a multitude of teenage parents, but if the Third Child was fifteen years old, and this little girl was around four or five years old…then something was off here.

"He probably found her off the streets or something," she suggested.

"No, the little girl's his daughter, down to the last strand of her DNA," Kaji revealed.

"What, like a clone or something?"

"No, Asuka. More like a result of being kidnapped and held a prisoner for three days in an attempt to gain a ransom…and just before he was found by the police, the only woman that was part of the trio of kidnappers thinking they could get some easy money went and raped the little boy. She got pregnant, had his daughter in prison then died, and then the police gave the baby to the boy. After that, nothing was ever the same for him. Then again, nothing is ever the same for anyone that experiences rape."

Asuka wanted to disbelieve this as nothing more than an outright and cleverly-made lie. She believed that some boys would drool just to be in the presence of a woman, maybe even howl at the moon for being courted by woman, but being the victim of rape by a woman? That was unlikely to happen, as women were not equipped to cause harm to men. And then, there was the fact that this boy only piloted the Eva once and left after the Third Angel's defeat, refusing to stay and deal with the rest of the Angels that would come.

Clang! A part of the wall in front of them came off, being kicked off by a little leg, and they saw a little girl crawl out of a ventilation shaft.

"In fact, Asuka," Kaji went, "that's his daughter, right there."

"Her?!" She gasped.

Shado, with her hair a mess, grabbed the panel she kicked off and placed it back onto the wall…and then noticed the adult man and the girl around her father's age and height, looking at her. She was tired from trying to get away from the man in black, but was prepared to run if they tried anything on her.

"Hello," Kaji greeted the child. "You must be Fuyona."

"That's not my name," Shado expressed, now feeling like she needed to get away. "I need to find my father now."

"Hold on, we can take you to him," Asuka suggested, but from the way she sounded, it was more than likely just a way to lure the little girl into a false sense of security.

"No thanks," Shado responded, sounding terrified of the redhead and the adult now. "I can find him on my own."

When Asuka took a step to approach Shado, the little girl panicked and ran away.

-x-

Somehow, Shinji was able to work through having a bullet in his left shoulder as he staggered down the hall. His adrenaline hampering the pain he should've felt from getting shot at. He lost count on how many people he had either harmed or killed after picking up the gun, but was sure that it was below thirty or so.

"Shado… Shado… I'm coming for you…Shado," he panted, dripping blood from his open wound.

-x-

"…It looks like the girl is now out of the ventilation system and is heading towards the Unit-01 cage," said Shigeru to Gendo on the bridge. "And the Third Child is on his way there, as well."

Gendo decided to go to the cage to meet the separated pair that were trying to get back together.

"Ikari," Fuyutsuki expressed, getting his attention. "We really shouldn't be doing this to them. This isn't worth anything that has already happened. We're treading over grounds we shouldn't even be on."

But Gendo had already decided to tread on the grounds that NERV was on, unwilling to deviate from his goal to force his son to join NERV and pilot the Eva. And if he continued to refuse, then the girl could prove to be sufficient enough to replace him.

-x-

"Stop running, kid!" Asuka demanded, but Shado persisted in getting away, wanting desperately to get back to her father. "I hope there's someone to spank you!"

_Daddy would never spank me,_ though Shado, reaching an open door and running into the large chamber in front of her.

She stopped running as soon as the door closed, allowing herself a moment to catch her breath, and she fell to her palms and knees. Then, noticing a large wall of purple beside her on the left, she turned to face it…and went wide-eyed at the behemoth she had seen last year here: Evangelion Unit-01; it stood immobile, but its presence was still enough to frighten the girl. She slowly got back up and started to move away.

"There you are!" She heard that voice, that one voice that came from the man that tried to take her from her father, simply because he claimed he could, that he had authority, whatever that word meant.

Looking around her, there was barely anyplace left to run to. And with the entire bottom of the large room filled with a strange fluid, Shado suspected that she couldn't get away using that method, as she hadn't taken swimming lessons yet; her father wasn't entirely big on large bodies of water himself.

"You're the bad man," she called him, and then saw three men coming into the chamber from the opposite side. "What do you want?"

"Either you or your… The boy you're with will pilot the Eva," he expressed his desire of her and her father, though he wouldn't address his son as such.

"No," she responded, about to run back the way she came in, hoping she could get a head start in the hall before the girl with red hair and the adult she was with could stop her, but that was no longer an option, as the door opened and revealed said pair entering the chamber.

"I still believe they're just nothing more than trouble," the redhead said.

Shado was cornered! She had nowhere to run…and she couldn't swim away.

BANG! Something loud was made.

"Aaurgh!" One of the men groaned in agony, holding his left leg as it started bleeding.

"Everyone whose name isn't Shado had better get down on the floor," Shado leaned her head around the three men…and saw her father, hurting and wielding a smoking gun, demonstrating a lot of anger, similar to what he showed to the men in black back in New York. "I'm not in the mood for questioning authority or negotiating."

"Whoa!" Asuka gasped, seeing not a scrawny boy…but an enraged man that was extremely concerned for his daughter's safety.

Behind him was a series of bloody droplets, indicating that he had been shot at, but he was working through the pain.

"Daddy," the Second Child then heard the little girl say, expressing her concern for the man.

"Shinji Ikari," went Kaji, raising his arms up, "maybe we can work this out…"

"Now!" He shouted, raising the gun up to the ceiling and firing another bullet.

The other two men that were helping the injured third with his leg, heeding his threat, got on the floor.

Kaji, fearing that he was dead serious (and the fact that he was able to kill at least three of the five agents sent to bring him here, with the fourth barely surviving), got on his knees and pulled Asuka down with him to ensure she would live through this.

"He is not so dangerous," she told him, speaking her mind about Shinji.

"Shado," Shinji then spoke up, in a softer tone that was meant for his daughter, "please, come over here now. They're not going to do anything."

"Stay where you are," went Gendo. "Both of you."

But Shado, unafraid of her father, listened to him, and slowly moved past the three men and then ran over to be with said parent.

He picked her up with his uninjured arm and slowly backed out of the chamber and into the hall.

"Keep away," he threatened them. "If you value your safety…you'll keep away."

And then, he ran off with her.

"Verdammt," Asuka cursed in German. "Who does that…that boy think he is?"

"A father protecting his child," answered Kaji. "He wasn't hesitating when he aimed that gun at us. He was willing to harm us if it meant keeping his kid safe."

-x-

"Daddy," went Shado to Shinji, seeing the blood drop from behind him as he ran through the halls with her, "you're bleeding."

With sweat on his forehead, Shinji responded, "It's nothing, sweetie. I'm more concerned for your safety than my own. Are you hurt anywhere?"

"I'm fine."

During the trek away from where he found her, Shinji had dropped the gun. Deprived of any other means to protect himself and his daughter, he would have to rely on his adrenaline and bare hands to deal with anyone that came between them and freedom. And if he were to see Gendo again, may the gods have pity on him for what he might do to him.

To be continued…


	5. Loss

Creation began on 12-08-14

Creation ended on 12-16-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: Loss

"…No offense, Major Katsuragi," went Maya Ibuki to the purple-haired woman, "but after what happened three hours ago, most of the personnel don't want anything to do with Commander Ikari's son and granddaughter, including finding them."

"I don't blame them," Misato expressed her opinion. "NERV made a bad choice, going after a young parent that wants nothing to do with fighting the Angels after the initial attack. He's not a pilot, hardly a child himself, and he hates the majority of his family, all save for his daughter. I wouldn't be surprised if it was discovered that he fears women after what happened."

"So, his child's the only exception to this fear?" Hyuga questioned. "He must've been going crazy after he found out his rapist had his child."

"He injured over two dozen of the personnel down here when he was looking for his daughter. Whatever thoughts were running through his head, they probably didn't compare to his paternal instincts." Misato uttered; she couldn't truly understand Shinji's mental capacity, but she could tell that when both parent and child were separated, the parent went to extremes to find her, even willing to harm people if they came between them. "You can't fathom the desperation a person can feel when someone they love is taken from them. They get angry, they get confused, start doing things they never did in order to fix situations they find themselves in. That's what he did: He fixed a situation he found them in."

-x-

"…Surely, you could've handled this acquisition of the Third Child…a little more properly, Ikari," said SEELE 04 during the meeting between Gendo and SEELE.

"The Third Child refused to cooperate," Gendo expressed. "Certain actions had to be taken."

"Like hunting him down and endangering a little girl that you withheld the fact that she's his daughter?" SEELE 10 questioned. "Your strategy put several of NERV's personnel in the hospital, some of them have considered resigning, and you have nothing to show for it! You're beginning to show incompetency, which is intolerable."

"NERV underestimated his predictability," Gendo tried to pass this situation off as a series of unfortunate events. "Everything that transpired after he got loose was nothing more than a series of accidents. His refusal to cooperate caused the injuries of everyone he got near."

"Be sure that the next time you try to recruit the Third Child, Ikari, the methods used are less than unfavorable," said SEELE 01 to him. "And the next time you try to hide secrets like this, the consequences will be severe."

When the meeting ended, Gendo was left alone in the room and fuming. He knew that there was no way the Third Child could escape his restraints when he was left in the trauma ward, so that meant that someone had to have let him out of the cuffs. Whoever did so caused this measure of damage to the personnel and the lost of an adequate resource for the Eva program, and they would pay dearly for this when they were found out.

-x-

"Urgh!" Shinji groaned, as the surgical pliers in his shoulder removed the bullet from his body.

"That was a close call for you," an elderly man told him, putting the bullet in a nearby tray as he began to stitch up the wound. "We didn't expect to see you in Japan after you left the next day last year."

"I didn't expect for us to be back in Japan, either," Shinji told him, looking across the room at his sleeping daughter. "We have a good life in the States…or had a good life in the States…until that man came and sent his lackeys after the both of us."

The ajar door to the room opened up to reveal an elderly woman with receding, gray hair and carrying a tray holding two bowls of soup.

"And how is our patient with the GSW to the shoulder?" She asked kindly.

"Doing quite well with very little anesthesia," the man told her, sealing up the wound and placing a bandage over the disinfected area. "He does need to be careful not to tear his wound open, however."

Shinji leaned up off the table and replaced his shirt with one the elderly woman brought him earlier.

"Thank you again for your help," he praised them.

"It's always a pleasure to help those that are looking to get away and start over," the woman responded, setting the soup down on the table. "And as I've said before the first time I met you last year, you've done an excellent job raising your daughter."

"Thank you."

It was about a day after they left Tokyo-3 the previous year that they were found on the road by the elderly couple and offered a ride to their house for a hot meal. The man was a retired physician while his wife was a homemaker. When they discovered that Shado was Shinji's daughter (and not his little sister or cousin, as they initially thought) and that they had no home to go back to (not that Shinji would ever call anyplace that his father, aunt or uncle lived home after the way they treated the young father and his daughter), they helped them get on a boat departing to the USA to a contact that would help them get on their feet. When they hadn't heard from them, all they could assume was that the father and daughter had managed to move on and live a life in minor obscurity; a pair of nobodies don't get much attention, being just a bunch of faces in the crowd. It was a surprise to find that they had returned to Japan against their will.

"We'll get in contact with Serizawa and see if it's safe to send you back to the States," the elderly man told Shinji.

"Maybe you should put off doing that for a while," Shinji suggested. "My father wouldn't hesitate to assume Shado and I have returned to New York. He'd send in his lackeys again…and again…and again, unwilling to leave us alone."

"Then, maybe you two should stay here a while," the lady suggested. "You're more than welcome to."

"Thank you."

-x-

Shado awoke to the fading smell of something warm and delicious, and opened her eyes to a bowl of soup…and her father asleep in a nearby chair. There was a bowl on a stand near him that was half-empty of the same soup that was in the bowl near her. As she got up, she picked up the spoon and began to eat. And when she was finished, she went over to her father, who looked as though where and how he slept right now was uncomfortable, as most chairs were when they were used to sleep on.

As she had slept, a part of her had been hoping that what had happened to them was nothing more than an outrageous dream, that they hadn't been kidnapped, brought back to Japan, or that her father had been forced to hurt people to keep her safe or escape from where they had been. It pained her heart to see her father having to endure so much pain for her, to suffer in order to keep her safe. She hardly seemed worth everything he did, but he smiled at her happiness, cared more about her than he could've for himself or someone else.

Grumble! She felt her stomach rumble as she felt the need to use the bathroom, so she stepped out of the room and walked down the hallway of the elderly couple's home they been in the previous year.

"…Why would his father try to have him brought back to Japan against his will if he knew that he was trying to build a better life for his own family in the USA?" She heard a man's voice in a different room as she found the bathroom.

"Does any cruel-hearted father have to have a reason for being awful to their children and their children, dear?" A woman responded. "Gendo Ikari isn't exactly known for being a gentleman or a model parent. But if he had to have a reason, some could say that it was jealousy that drove him to do what he did."

"Jealousy? Because his son has a child that is being raised by him instead of being placed in some orphanage or group home? I've seen the fire in the young father's eyes and could tell that Shinji could never part away from his daughter, regardless of what other people say or think. The only way he would stop being a parent to his daughter…is if something disastrous happened to him that left him incapable of caring for her."

Shado then stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

-x-

The sight of her in a fearful state was a clear sign that her husband had changed in the time since the Contact Experiment with Unit-01. She saw Shado frightened by the people chasing her, by Gendo trying to use her and her father, but the sight of Shinji, her hero, coming to her rescue lifted her spirits as they both left. This left Yui wondering how much change had occurred since she became the soul of the Evangelion to ensure a bright future for Shinji, who had changed and matured in order to ensure a better future for his own child. But the fact that Gendo had deliberately harmed both children was a sign that nothing was going well for Shinji or his daughter.

-x-

After she washed her hands and left out the bathroom, Shado returned to the room her father was in, but stopped by the window in the hall, looking up at the sky. She saw something bright and moving across the night sky.

_A shooting star? _She thought, seeing it disappear beyond the other stars that twinkled in the night.

Quickly, she went back to the room and closed the door. She sat on her legs in front of the small cot and pressed her hands together.

Unbeknownst to her, the closing of the door awoke Shinji, who looked at her and could only assume that she was praying to the deities.

"Hello, deities of the sky," he heard her say, "it's me again. Shado Ikari. My father was hurt saving me, and I'm worried that he may not be able to protect either of us again, even if he wants to, because he has his limits. I believe we need someone that can look out for the both of us, someone to be a watcher or protector, that can't be hurt like we can, that won't leave us in danger. I saw a shooting star, so I believe that I can wish for one such hope to happen. Perhaps you could send us a pair of angels to look after us."

A tear escaped Shinji's left eye, hearing this prayer/wish his daughter made to the gods above.

"The strongest and nicest angels you can spare," she finished.

-x-

In the vastness of space, a bright light shined like a supernova, and something shot out of it, heading toward the Milky Way Galaxy. Much of the light, like scales or plates, shed away from the main body of the construct, revealing a pair of large, wing-like shapes.

"Aaaaaiieeeeeeee!" The object shrieked.

To be continued…


	6. Guardians

Creation began on 12-18-14

Creation ended on 12-29-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: Guardians

The sunlight shone on Shinji's face, waking him from his slumber and to the sight of his daughter, asleep on his lap, holding onto him.

"Aah…" He groaned, feeling stiff in his upper joints as he moved.

Shado, feeling movement beneath her, opened her eyes and looked up at her father.

"Good morning, Daddy," she greeted.

"Good morning, Shado," he replied.

-x-

Deep beneath the oceans of the planet, the damaged cities that were submerged due to the Second Impact were being waded through by something large and ancient. It had been slumbering for many generations…in another time, and now, something awoke it, causing it to travel a great distance towards its unknown destination. Whatever it was, it was…similar to what it used to do for a different purpose altogether.

-x-

"Hello, I'm Kozo Fuyutsuki," the NERV Sub-Commander introduced himself to the gentleman that was Shinji's uncle and Shado's great-uncle.

"How may I help you?" He asked him.

"Does Shinji live here?"

"He used to live here. Isn't he with his father?"

"No, I'm afraid not. We're trying to find him and his daughter, but we have no leads. Has he ever tried to contact you?"

"No, and to be honest, it's better that he didn't. The less we hear of Shinji, the better."

Fuyutsuki was surprised to hear him say that. Normally, most relatives would be concerned about their kids being missing or kidnapped, but this guy seemed unaffected by his nephew or great-niece's absence or disappearance.

Then, he asked if he could look around where Shinji and Shado lived, and he was shown to the back of the house to what looked like a small study that was shaped like a little house.

"We haven't been in there since they left," the uncle expressed. "Only God knows what's in there."

Fuyutsuki turned the doorknob and pulled the door open, taking a look inside. He was quite shocked at what resided in this shack. The sight of two small beds, a stack of books, several drawings adorning the walls and ceiling, and small dishes made the place look like someone's attempt to turn the place into a home instead of a study. And then the sight of a small photograph caught his eye. It was covered in dust, so he wiped it clean to reveal the picture, seeing the two children posed.

Shinji, holding his daughter on the grass in a park, smiling whilst his child smiled and gave the peace symbol with her left hand.

Sighing, Fuyutsuki took the picture out and showed it to the uncle.

"It looks like Shinji and Shado lived here more than they did in the house," he told him.

"That was Shinji's decision after my son hassled his bastard child," the uncle explained. "Ever since the police dumped her here, he went and declared that she was his responsibility after my wife made an attempt to persuade him to give her away."

"You mean an orphanage?"

"Among other things. To this day, I'm still surprised that he managed to father a child with a woman over thirty-five…and that his rapist had his child. My wife believes that the reason behind this was just another get-rich-quick scheme, except that the mother died before she could try to get her hands on anything. Why Shinji even bothered to keep the kid when his own father left him is beyond us. Probably because he doesn't want to be like him."

Fuyutsuki looked back inside the little house and at the books. One of them was titled _A Guide to Parenthood and Child Rearing_, something Fuyutsuki found appropriate to the way Shinji seemed to demonstrate his concern over his daughter.

"Well, he clearly cherishes her," he told the uncle. "He read one of those parental guide books."

-x-

"Shinji?" The elder lady said to the young father, carrying a few clothes in her hands. "I was up in the attic, and I found some clothes that Shado could wear."

"Thank you," he praised her, accepting the clothes from her, and continued to wait outside the bathroom for Shado to finish washing the dirt off her body.

Inside the bathroom, sitting in the tub, Shado let the water that flowed around as the shower head poured warm water over her. For a short while, she thought she would need her father to help her wash the dirt off her back, but was okay by herself. Another problem was the fear that the bad man (Gendo) would find them while they were hiding here, but Shinji assured her that he would be keeping watch. It had seemed obvious to her father that his father, the bad man, frightened her more than any monsters she could've encountered. Not even the monster they saw last year on this cluster of islands frightened her as much as he did.

-x-

"…They've neither seen nor heard from since the day they left to Tokyo-3," Fuyutsuki told Gendo when he returned to the Geo-Front. "They weren't even the slightest bit worried about them. The little shack that was in their backyard, along with a small room that they say was Shinji's, looked like they might've been where Shinji lived with his daughter as he was raising her. The shack was like a tiny house for the two."

"I didn't expect them to keep in touch with the Third Child and the girl," Gendo responded. "If he didn't return to them after he left here, it was a clear sign that he had nothing left to go back to."

"Ikari, your son and granddaughter truly had nothing left to return to, which is probably why they left the country and immigrated to the States. Until we dragged them back against their will, and that resulted in several deaths and injuries."

As the two conversed back and forth, Misato and Ritsuko were engaged in a similar conversation about Shinji and Shado.

"…If they manage to get out of the country and get back to the States, will NERV go after them again?" Misato questioned.

"If Commander Ikari orders so," Ritsuko explained.

"Why does he seem so obsessed with making his son pilot the Eva when he has made it clear, either by his voice or the number of people he's harmed, that he wants nothing to do with NERV, the Angels, or him? And how many people have to get hurt before he gets the message?"

"He's not the understanding type, and he's not known to accept anyone's decision if it conflicts with any of his."

-x-

The Earth seemed so beautiful from a vast distance in the abyss of space. If you're so far from the blue marble that you would assume was the only one in the universe that supported intelligent life, you couldn't see the horrible damage that was done to the planet. Unfortunately, the latest arrival to the planet could see the damage that had been done, and unlike most beliefs, there was no true rebirth in sight. Not with the extensive harm that had been done.

"Aaaaiieeeeee!" It shrieked, soaring closer to its destination, and entered the atmosphere.

-x-

"Hey, something just entered Earth's atmosphere," a man said to his superiors as he looked at his monitor.

"A meteorite?" A woman suggested.

"No, it can't be," he responded.

"Why?"

"It's…slowing down," he revealed.

"What?" She asked.

"It's…slowing down…and now, it's changing its course."

"Any attempt at communication?" Another man questioned.

"No attempt has been made."

And at that moment, a pair of jets were launched into the sky to intercept the foreign object that was confirmed to not be a meteorite.

"…Requesting confirmation that communication has been established," one of the pilots requested.

"No communication has been established," his superior responded.

In the clouds above the jets, whatever they were now catching up to, it was still unseen.

-x-

"…Well, it looks like they fit you just fine," said Shinji to Shado, as she finished putting on the hand-me-down shirt to go with the hand-me-down shorts.

"Do I look okay?" Shado asked, moving her arms to make sure she could move them while wearing it.

"You look good," her father expressed; the clothes she was wearing may have been for boys, but it was known that girls were often seen wearing them.

"Thank you."

"Shinji? Shado?" They both turned to the door of the room and saw the elderly man, looking worried.

"Yes?" They responded to him.

"I just got a call from a friend that recently left Tokyo-3, and she says that she received an unwelcome visit from some men in black suits and gave me a heads-up that they could be coming this way."

Shado then got tense and held onto her father's legs.

"There's an old mountain path nearby, and they may not be able to find you there if they try to look around here."

"Thank you," Shinji told the elder, and quickly grabbed his shoes.

-x-

"…Come again?" The female superior asked the two pilots that were assigned to intercept the unknown target that entered Earth's atmosphere.

"Target looks like…a blue bird on fire," one of the pilots repeated; even he was unsure of what to make of this phenomenon that they saw.

"A blue bird? On fire? Return to base immediately."

-x-

"Shado?" Shinji asked his daughter as they walked up the mountain path the elder had showed them in order to protect them from the men in black.

"Yes, Daddy?" She responded.

"Are you tired? Do you need me to carry you?"

"No thank you. I'm okay."

As they were walking through the trees on the path, a large distance from the base of the mountain path, several men in black had just left the house that they had questioned the owners. Unfortunately, Section 2 was instructed by Commander Ikari to look allover the area that spanned one-hundred miles in all four directions of Tokyo-3. Search the homes, the woods, even the mountains if it was necessary.

-x-

"We got incoming!" Hyuga announced, as the alarms went off, indicating that a new Angel had been detected.

On the screens and holographic displays, the new Angel looked like a gigantic mummy of sorts, wrapped in black and gray bindings with a large, metallic skull. It floated towards the city after passing the hills and tank and missile launcher-occupied domains that were emptying their payloads in desperate attempts to stop it.

"Launch Unit-02," Gendo ordered.

-x-

"Hey, I think I know where this thing is heading," said a woman, trying to monitor the unidentifiable creature that entered Earth's atmosphere.

"Where?" A man questioned her on her left side.

"It looks like…it's heading towards…Japan."

-x-

In the air, still obscured by the clouds, the planet's newest inhabitant flew towards the cluster of islands where it felt it needed to be.

-x-

"…Are you sure?" Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki asked the representative that called NERV to inform them of what was approaching the shores of the archipelago. "Understood."

He hung up the phone and turned to Gendo.

"That was the Japanese Air Self Defense Force," he informed him, "and they say that something is approaching Japan."

"Another Angel?" Gendo asked.

"They don't know."

Ring-ring-ring! The phone rang again, and Fuyutsuki picked up.

"Yes?" He asked, and then became distressed. "Are you sure?"

-x-

_Ten minutes ago_

A helicopter was doing a routine aerial check over the shorelines overlooking the Japan Trench. Everything being monitored and recorded was being transferred back to base for information updating. Until what caught one of the camera crew's attention made the rest of the helicopter uneasy.

Below at the ocean, something began to rise from the bubbling body.

BOOM! A geyser of water shot from the ocean and dispersed into an artificial rain, as the helicopter crew got an obscured view of what had risen.

"Oh, my God!" One of them gasped.

It was…some sort of mechanical monster, adorned in black, silver, gold and green armor, looking like some sort of dragon from an unknown time period. It glistened like new, and sparked glowing, red eyes as it looked up at the helicopter.

"Rrrrrraaurgh!" It roared and hissed, revealing that the talons of its claws looked like miniature cannons or missile launchers. "Rrrrurgh!"

Then, as if uninterested in the helicopter, it progressed towards the shore, revealing that its tail possessed a large, drill-like end. It was as if something better than the helicopter was waiting for it, or even calling it, to the Land of the Rising Sun that was Japan.

-x-

"…And it's not registering as an Angel?" Misato questioned, getting a look at this mechanical creature that was now walking through the ruins of an old city.

"No blue pattern is coming up from this thing," Maya Ibuki informed her. "It's not an Angel."

"Where's it heading?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Inward," went Shigeru. "If it keeps its current speed, it should be approaching the outskirts of Tokyo-2 in seventeen hours."

"Well, it seems to be in a hurry to get there," went Kaji.

-x-

Being deployed in Unit-01, Rei was instructed to intercept the mechanical creature while Unit-02 dealt with the Angel.

"That's all the data we have on this thing so far," she heard Major Katsuragi inform her. "If stopping it fails, your orders are to destroy it."

"Understood, Major Katsuragi," she responded.

-x-

"Daddy! Look at the monster!" Shado gasped, pointing towards the Angel.

Shinji saw the Angel and was immediately reminded of the previous year with the monster he had to fight just to get himself and Shado away from danger. He picked his child up and ran up the path to the peak of the mountain.

BANG! He heard a gun go off, and he looked behind them to see a bunch of black-suited men.

"That's as far as you go with your independence, Third Child," the one toting the handgun expressed. "Now, surrender and come with us quietly back to NERV HQ."

Shinji held on tightly to his daughter and questioned, "And if I were to decline?"

Of course, he knew there was nowhere left to run but up. There was another path down the mountain on the other side, but he'd probably be riddled with bullet holes by the time he got to the top. And worse was that he wasn't even recovered from the blood loss or his patch up from having the bullet removed from his shoulder. It was as his daughter said in her prayer/wish last night, that he had his limits because he was only a person that struggled to build a life for the both of them.

"Just give it up, kid," the man told him. "You can't run forever."

Shado stole a peek at the men and quickly turned away, frightened by them as she had been by the last bunch back in the States.

Shinji slowly backed further up the path, still striving to keep them away from the men in black.

"Close your eyes, baby," he told Shado, preparing to run if he had to, even if it meant he was likely to get shot again.

WHOOSH! A strong breeze swept past them…and then another that, literally, blew the men off their feet and off the path, down into the woods.

"Aaaaurgh!" They yelled as they vanished below the trees.

A large shadow loomed over the parent and child, and Shinji turned around to gaze up at what had shown up.

"No way," he gasped, and Shado opened her eyes to look.

A large creature that resembled a bird of sorts was hovering above them as it lowered and touched the ground at the base of the mountain. It was mostly blue, with large wings and a reddish-gold crest on its upper torso. What confused Shinji the most about it was that it had arms to go with its wings, like it had come from a world where creatures gifted with flight could adapt to use their arms for other purposes.

It then lowered its left claw down against the mountain path, in front of the two, in a strange gesture that reminded them of when someone wanted something handed to them.

"Aieee," it shrieked softly at them.

"Daddy," went Shado, "I think it wants us to go with it."

"But we don't even know what it wants," he told her, being logical.

"I don't believe it's here to hurt us. It would've done so already."

-x-

"Is that an Angel?" Misato asked Ritsuko.

"It's not registering as one," she answered. "No blue pattern's showing up."

The bird-like creature on the screen that appeared near the mountain then lifted off the ground and took to the air.

Suddenly, the Angel, which was about to face Unit-02, levitated and went after the bird-like creature!

-x-

BLAST, BLAST, BLAST! The Angel fired off several energy beams at the bird-like creature, but missed each time. Whatever this creature was, there was a chance that it was a threat to its agenda.

In the claws of the beast, Shinji and Shado wondered what was going on around them, as they couldn't see what was happening.

"What's going on?" Shado wondered, as the breeze outside the creature's claws snuck through its talons and swept around them.

BLAST! They heard another explosion, and the creature shrieking.

SLAM! Shinji had to assume that, due to the feeling of gravity pushing down on him and his daughter, the creature had to land on the ground. Then, the creature's right claw, which was over their heads, lifted away and revealed several small buildings around them. Beneath them was a surface, a roof, and Shinji grabbed Shado and ran onto it.

The creature took flight and attacked the monster that attacked it.

"Aaaaiieeeeee!" It shrieked, and then fired a bluish-green stream of fire from its beak at the monster.

"Whoa!" Shado gasped, seeing the flames hit the monster and burn it a little.

"Grrrraurgh!" The Angel growled in pain as its body began to slowly heal from this unexpected assault.

Then, it unwrapped itself and revealed that the wrapping were almost like toilet paper in their appearance, and used them to wrap up the creature's wings and arms.

"Aaaiieeeee!" It shrieked, unable to break free.

-x-

"…Orders, Misato?" Asuka asked over the intercom, raising her Pallet Rifle at the levitating Angel that was busy against the creature that had appeared; she was certain that the majority of the NERV personnel was losing their ability to stand the sight of the creature that attacked the Angel struggling to break free of its grip.

"Aaaiieeeee!" The creature continued to struggle, despite it all being hopeless.

"Pilot Soryu, incoming!" She then heard the First Child, and then saw what had to be impossible: Unit-01, in the air, falling towards her!

"Whoa!" She moved Unit-02 out of the way and watched the purple Evangelion crash into the ground.

Then, several small rockets came near her and blasted her Eva onto the ground, as well. The ones that didn't hit her Eva went up towards the Angel's toilet paper-like limbs, blowing them up and releasing the bird-like creature from its grasp.

"Rrraaurgh!" Asuka looked over at a hillside…and saw the mechanical monster that the First Child was supposed to be dealing with, walking around the buildings of Tokyo-2.

"I thought that thing was supposed to be hours away from here!" She gasped.

"It sped up," Misato told her.

-x-

"Incredible," Shinji expressed, seeing the mechanical creature that just showed up and fired rockets from its claws at the Angel.

It reminded him of the old films and the most recent film about that dinosaur-like animal that was the result of atomic testing that periodically attacked Japan, only this one was heavily stacked and looked as though it didn't obey what he learned during his time in the States as the laws of physics, where something heavy couldn't move as fast as something that was not heavy.

The mechanical beast stopped for a moment and turned its head towards the buildings. It looked at a particular building's roof, at two humans atop it, a young man and a little girl. Then, it resumed its trek across the ground towards the bird-creature.

"Daddy," went Shado, "I think it was looking at us."

To be continued…

A/N: Here's the latest chapter of this new story of change. Some people are curious as to what these creatures are, but wait until the next chapter to know the whole sum. As the Angel, it's Zeruel, the mightiest of Adam's children.


	7. We'll protect you

Creation began on 12-29-14

Creation ended on 01-05-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: We'll protect you

The mechanical, dinosaur-like creature that threw Unit-01 aside was now facing the Angel alongside the bird creature, both looking like they had a score to settle against it.

Eva Units-01 and 02 were forced to watch from the sidelines.

NERV HQ was in suspense at what was going to happen.

"Why would two unidentifiable creatures show up to fight an Angel?" Kaji asked Ritsuko.

"Why would a mechanical creature show up at all?" Ritsuko responded.

-x-

The chest emblem on the mechanical dinosaur blinked red lights and its claws fired another series of rockets at the Angel.

BLAST! The rockets all hit their mark on the Angel's body, forcing it to the ground against a hill.

"Aiieeeee!" The bird shrieked, taking flight and attacking the Angel with its taloned feet. "Aiieeee!"

Now sporting gashes on its upper body, Zeruel tried to attack the creature with its toilet paper-like limbs again, but the mechanical creature came by and grabbed the closest pair of limbs belonging to the Angel…and pulled so hard that they tore off, exposing a red, blood-like substance to the atmosphere.

"Gruargh!" Zeruel growled in pain.

SLASH! The bird's talons caused a crack in the Angel's exposed core; not even the protective membrane that Zeruel possessed could keep out the attack, causing a measure of injury to him.

"Gruaaaurgh!" He growled, just as the same substance that spilled from his limbs seeped out of his mouth. "Gruaaaurgh!"

The mechanical creature's chest emblem blinked again, and then its tail's drill-like end began to spin like an actual drill…and whipped it towards the core.

With it being possibly hopeless, Zeruel willed his protective membrane to cover his damaged core, but the drill rammed against the membrane with enough force to pierce through it, driving into the core and sending chips and fragments flying allover. He felt his soul fading from his body, and a bright light ahead of him.

-x-

"…Incredible," Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki expressed, and then saw the damaged core of the Angel light up like a Christmas tree.

"Self-destruct?!" Ritsuko gasped.

And then, the Angel blew up, bathing everything in white fire.

-x-

"Daddy, I'm scared!" Shado cried to Shinji, who shielded her face from the explosion.

Suddenly, the young father heard the sounds of a vacuum cleaner around them, and opened his eyes to an unbelievable sight. It was the blue bird, sucking in the fire and destroyed remains of the Angel through its beak.

"Aiieeee!" It shrieked as the last traces of the Angel's attempted murder-suicide were absorbed into itself, removing whatever was left of the explosion. "Aieeee!"

"Rrrraaurgh!" The mechanical dinosaur roared; it seemed they were cheering their victory over the powerful Angel.

-x-

"…The target has been defeated," Maya Ibuki declared.

"And the Evas?" Ritsuko asked.

"Unharmed."

"Can they still fight?" Gendo asked.

"Yes."

"It doesn't look like they'll get a chance, though," went Hyuga, pointing to the screens and at the two creatures that took out the Angel.

They were slowly approaching the buildings of Tokyo-2.

-x-

The giants stopped in front of the building that Shinji and Shado were on, standing in front of the two.

Shinji let go of his daughter and stood up in front of the two, wondering what was going to happen.

The bird placed its left claw on the rooftop, in the same gesture it had used earlier, meant for the two climb aboard.

Then, Shinji had the slightest of a realization of all that had happened.

"Shado," he uttered, picking his daughter up, "do you think you had something to do with these two?"

"Me?" She asked. "Why would I have anything to do with them?"

"Just a question."

Somehow, the little girl suspected that her father knew what he was asking her about, but wanted her to say more than he was trying not to.

"Last night," she started, "I made a wish on a shooting star. I was worried about you because you're not a superman or whatever it is they call people in the movies. I asked the deities for a pair of guardians to look after the both of us."

"I guess the deities really came through with your wish. Though, they could've probably turned the wish into something else a little bit."

"Not what I truly expected, but they still did what I had expected of them to do."

"Which is?"

"They watched out for us and protected us."

Shinji sighed and expressed, "Yeah… Yeah, they did."

"Though, one thing still puzzles me: What exactly are these two?"

Shinji then picked her up and walked onto the bird's claw, which immediately closed up to protect the two. If these two creatures were the guardians Shado had wished for on a shooting star, then he was putting his faith in their ability to do their newly-appointed task without fail.

The bird then took flight into the air, while the mechanical creature walked away from the city, disappearing behind the hills.

-x-

"They left," went Shigeru, "just like that?"

"They showed up, they fight the Angel, and then they leave," Misato expressed.

Yet, while much of NERV was in mixed awe over what happened, Gendo was furious. Something or someone other than his paramilitary organization may have shown an interest in facing the Angels, and the defeat of this particular Angel now made things difficult for him. Another facet to this new wrinkle was that whatever these two creatures were, they had to belong to somebody, some other agency with resources that rivaled or were superior to NERV's…and they might've been the same people that could've been aiding the runaway Third Child and his bastard daughter.

Ring-ring-ring! Fuyutsuki answered the phone.

"Yes?" He spoke with whoever it was. "Understood."

He hung up and turned to Gendo.

"That was the Committee," he told him.

-x-

Ring-ring-ring! A phone rung, and the elderly man that helped Shinji and Shado picked it up.

"Sakuraba residence," he greeted the caller. "Shinji?"

His wife, who was surfing the television channels available, heard him say Shinji's name and muted the television to listen.

"Where are you? Are you and Shado alright? You're in New Jersey? How'd you get there so fast?"

On the other side of the planet, calling from outside a small store through the use of a prepaid phone, Shinji had called the Sakurabas and informed them that he and Shado had returned to the States and were going home. He decided to leave out how they got back, insisting that the less they knew, the better. But he would call them again one day, once a few days, or weeks…or months had passed by.

"…Thank you again for all your help," he told them, and then hung up before he shoved the phone into his pants' left pocket and got into a taxi with his daughter.

Shado had fallen asleep on the way into the Manhattan borough.

-x-

"…And all attempts to track these…creatures have been met naught?" SEELE 05 asked Gendo in the meeting.

"We're not impressed, Ikari," added SEELE 09. "First, you lose the Third Child and his bastard child, and then you're unable to deal with the latest Angel, which was beaten by a pair of unknowns."

"NERV will find these creatures and the Third Child and his daughter," Gendo assured the council.

"One week, Ikari," SEELE 01 declared. "If the Third Child is not reacquired by NERV or continues to refuse, you are ordered to consider both him and his child a lost cause. We have more pressing concerns to work with."

"The Human Instrumentality Project," SEELE 12 expressed. "We will not have this project halted any further by the Angels or any outside interference."

When the meeting concluded, Gendo was again enraged. He had the Third Child and his bastard child right where he wanted them, but then the boy had gotten free somehow (and the investigation on how was still ongoing) and escaped with her. And now, he was being given a deadline to cease going after his son and granddaughter in favor of other interests. If he couldn't reacquire them, or they continued to hinder his authoritarian abilities, he would have to (and by "have to", he would be forced to) consider them unobtainable, meaning that Unit-01 would be stuck with Rei until the Dummy System was within the limits of operational.

_Damn you, boy,_ he thought, unwilling to address Shinji as anything with familiar ties. _Damn you!_

-x-

As he walked down the hall to their apartment door, Shinji felt the drowsiness get to him. But when he reached their door, he put his sleeping daughter on his left shoulder as he rotated a combination lock in front of a compartment that had been built into the door to retrieve the emergency key. All he had to do was enter the proper combination and remove the lock, open the compartment and remove the key, which was a simple task because his lock was basic.

Click! The lock undid itself, and he removed it to retrieve the key.

"Shado," he spoke to his sleeping daughter, who moaned as she was being awoken. "We're home."

He unlocked all eight locks on their door and stepped inside, closed the door and relocked the locks.

Shado opened her eyes to the bright lights her father turned on, and saw the familiar furniture of their home that they had been in for almost a year.

Shinji took her to her room and changed her out of the hand-me-down clothes from the Sakurabas and into her footed pajamas based off the tiger and put her in her futon.

"Goodnight, Shado," he told her as he tucked her in.

Shado didn't say anything, as she had fallen asleep again; Shinji assumed it was a form of jet lag due to flying back to Japan and then back to the States in such a short time.

He left out her room and went into the kitchen to put on a pot of tea. As he sat down at the table, he rubbed his temples as he tried to clear his mind of unnecessary thoughts from the last three hours.

_I hope we don't go through that experience ever again,_ he thought, and ate a saltless cracker.

Hiss! The kettle started to whistle, and he got up to retrieve it before it woke his daughter up.

"_Should you ever be in danger,"_ the voice of what had assumed to be the blue bird after they arrived in New Jersey in the cloak of the night, _"we shall come to your aid. Should you ever be in danger."_

"_We're always near,"_ the second voice he heard that he assumed was the mechanical creature's, also using a form of telepathy, said to him.

Adding jasmine to the boiled water, the young teen parent let the tea soothe his less-than-calm soul and nerves that were still affected by the remnants of adrenaline he had when he rescued his daughter. It had been about two years after he got Shado that he started drinking tea, and he had to admit that it helped his nerves when it came to either having to deal with either his daughter, which was tolerable, or anyone else that gave him a hard time, which was intolerable. If he didn't have anything else to do with his life, he would've probably tried to become a teashop owner.

"Heh," he chuckled slightly. "It's a lot better than coffee."

Five minutes later, when he had finished his tea, he turned in for the remainder of the night. Too tired to change into his pajamas, he simply removed his shirt and got into his futon. But what he didn't see on account of the lights being off and the window blinds closed was what was now on his back. Just under his nape and above the small of his back was a circular mark, shaped like the taijitu or yin/yang symbol…but with the opposing sides of light and darkness replaced by the two creatures Shado had wished for, perfectly rendered in the ink, with the blue bird representing the dark side and mechanical, dinosaur-like creature representing the light side, soaring and swimming around one another in an eternal dance, balancing out the universe.

"The dragon and the phoenix," he yawned, drifting to sleep. "The dragon…of the sea…and…the phoenix…of the sky."

To be continued…

A/N: To those that still aren't sure what the two creatures are, the blue bird is the Phoenix Galactabeast from _Power Rangers Lost Galaxy_,resurrected after its destruction and restored to its original state, which has adapted, and the mechanical, dinosaur-like creature is the Dragonzord from _Mighty Morphin Power Rangers_, re-energized with new power to ensure it can do its newfound duty as a protector.


End file.
